There’s a book on my shelf called The God That Failed. It’s filled with dense, barely-readable essays by European scholars who grew disillusioned with Communism and left it for greener free markets. There’s a book right next to it that might as well be called The Church That Failed. But it isn’t. It’s Shane Claiborne’s latest, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.

Shane Claiborne lives in community at the Simple Way in Philadelphia. It is an experimental community in the most impoverished area of town. They serve food, give clothes, send out newsletters, and get arrested; but they mostly love people and try to follow Jesus.

Shane seeks to take Christianity back to its root, a word he is quick to say is a definition of â€œradical.â€ He searches his way back towards Jesus and the early Church, back towards Scripture itself. But, unlike so many other books, this is not a quest through words, where definitions and contrasting views guide the reader, with just enough cute stories to prop up the lifeless pauses in between. This is a journey illustrated by the experiences of Claiborne himself, from his college days up to his latest adventure in poverty. And his stories aren’t cute. They make you laugh, make you think, make you hurt, make you cry, but they certainly aren’t something you can dismiss by calling â€œcute.â€

This is not a book, but rather a light which shines from the parts of life we have forgotten and left behind. Claiborne reports from where he lives, worlds away from where most of us have ever been, even if we live only blocks away. He humbly presents every reader with a tale easy to read only in its diction, never its content.

More importantly, this is not only a book of personal experiences. Shane Claiborne is not seeking to be a spiritualized Dave Sedaris. He is not even keeping the profits from his book, choosing to give them away instead. The point of this book, the desire of this book, is that we would read it and think. That we would change the way we live our lives. That we would join in the life of Christ, not simply sit on the sidelines and wait for some piety in the sky.

Reading The Irresistible Revolution, it is tempting and all too convenient to write Claiborne off as little more than an angry liberal. He’s someone who loves a simple Jesus and crudely pastes a social agenda on top of the Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, he actually lives the Jesus so many of us do little more than spit out cute phrases about. That twinge we feel when we read about how our fixation on â€œcontextâ€ effectively emasculates every hard saying of Jesus or that we must be involved in social work is not our conservative radar going off and warning us of impending heresy. Far more often than not, it is nothing more than our own selfishness dressing up in the clothes of God.

Claiborne overflows with an evangelical obsession with Christ and the things of God along with the ethical conscience and socially broken heart of Che Guevara. He straddles both worlds efficiently, but stops short of going too far in either direction and ending up with a â€œnice manâ€ Jesus or a fundamentalist Christ. And it is precisely this balance which is the least appealing to us. We want to hear what makes us feel good, what lets us know that we have supported the right side all of our lives. We don’t want to know that most of the world lives on the equivalent of $.36 a day. We don’t want to hear about the rich American segment of the body of Christ gorging itself on materialism and money while the rest looks on from the brink of starvation. We don’t want the hard sayings. But that’s what the middle is . . . hard. And Shane Claiborne tells it from pretty close to dead center.

In one of the most compelling chapters, Claiborne speaks of how he went to Iraq on his own personal mission of peacekeeping. He visited churches in Baghdad, played soccer with neighborhood children, prayed with far too many grieving mothers of other children. He speaks about how, time after time, he was asked why the American church so strongly supported a war that has had such a damaging effect on civilian life with the death toll approaching 10 civilians to every 1 armed death, soldier or civil warrior. Regardless of our own personal opinions of the legality of the war, the efficacy of the troop surge, or the importance of freedom, Claiborne brings up an issue most of us seldom take the time to think of. And in doing so, he makes his most powerful point of the book without having to say another word. An American Jesus is no Jesus at all. An American Saviour can’t save a thing.

Some will see this book as fresh air in the failing lungs of American Evangelicalism. Some will see it as liberal trash, saying we need more of the world in our faith and more of Marx in our government. And so, at it’s very worst, this book leaves the Church waving Communism’s red flag, but any color is better than the white flag we’re showing now.

5 users commented in " A Book Review of “The Irresistible Revolution” by Shane Claiborne "

Thank you so much for this evaluation. I have just recently discovered this book. A friend is reading it also at the moment. I go to an evangelical Baptist college- my frist real encounter with the Baptists though my home church was not too far off. One of my professors is very interested in trying to understand the “emerging” and/or “emergent” church movement. I am going to give him your review and the book. There are those within the movement, or who my college would place under that label who are unbiblical. Casting out the word of God for a Jesus who just doesn’t fit with scripture or history. However, this book gives a beautiful and passionate perspective from someone who loves God, loves the word, and loves people.
Thank you for your thoughts.

Jenette said,

in May 17th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

If everyone lived as Mr. Claiborne and his housemates do, who would send them money? Who would support all of us righteous poor christians?

I felt like the book was incomplete. Maybe a good start to some good questions, other questions were loaded. Unlike you I thought it was pretty cutsie. For a good review (better than mine) I suggest looking up “humble resistance”, but first read The Irresistible Revolution; it is definitely worth a read, it’s just not stunningly profound.

Excellent review, I think you captured the essential points of the book really well. I also read the review by Shane Walker that Jenette referred too, which is very critical. While Walker does have some points, I’d say the majority of his points confuses what Claiborne is actually talking about. For example, Walker sais about Claibornes book that “The cure for the ‘health-and-wealth gospel’ appears to be a gospel that confuses salvation by faith alone with the redistribution of wealth to the poor”, but I cannot recall Claiborne ever claiming that salvation can be reached through something other than faith alone. Claiborne is talking about his desire to follow Christ as a consequence of his salvation, but in some remarkable way Walker seems to have missed that. Surely Walker can’t seariously claim that following Christ should have no impact on our lives?

Jenette writes that “I felt like the book was incomplete” and that “If everyone lived as Mr. Claiborne […] who would send them money?”. But Claiborne says in the very beginning of his book (In “A little note”) that “[t]he point is not to give you all the answers but to stir up some of the questions.”. He never claims that everyone should live as he does, that it’s wrong to make money or that he has all the answers. In fact, I’d say he sais just the opposite. His book is not about finding the answers as much as it is about asking the questions.

Walker shatters the respect I had for his review in his last two paragraphs. I find Walker’s comment that “Claiborne pretends that […] poverty can be eliminated without the return of Christ” extremely disturbing. Since when was it a christian value to put success in front of doing what’s right?

I find Claibornes book to be extremely motivating and inspiring. It gives me hope of a church that is alive, and confirms my longing for Jesus to have a greater impact on how I live my life is something real, and not just a hollow dream.

Thanks for the review.

Murray said,

in October 1st, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Agreed. I found his book to be quite inspiring. I did find myself going off on a binge for a while, thinking that everyone should go one way. I’d attribute that to my own erring. However, I completely agree with what Josef said about Walker’s comment being disturbing. We were never actually called to put success in front of doing God’s work.

The whole idea is that we have no worth outside of what God places in us. So for Claiborne to “pretend that poverty can be eliminated without the return of Christ” is….how very odd…him “living out His will on earth, as it is in Heaven”. Huh. Isn’t that funny.

Additionally, to flip it around, if we all decided that poverty cannot be eliminated, should we just give up? What exactly is Walker’s point? I see no other way about this. 3 choices: 1. Think/Decide nothing can be done/Don’t care(lottta people *raises own hand* confession of being a hypocrite, and in need of His help) 2. Decide that nothing can be done, but try anyways, because lots of people are suffering. 3. Live like the God who is saving you cares for everyone, and try to emulate His love.

Jesus points out that we will do even great things than he has done. He never said we wouldn’t fail repeatedly in trying, that we would succeed in parts we think aren’t useful or relevant, and that we’d think His ways of getting us to where He wants would make sense.

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